VFX Shops Iloura And Method Are Merging Into One Mega-Studio

Iloura and Method Studios, two vfx companies owned by Deluxe, have announced that they will unify under a single brand: Method Studios.

The combined team now has offices in Melbourne, Sydney, Vancouver, Los Angeles, New York, Pune, Chicago, and Atlanta, and it will continue producing work across a wide range of platforms including features, television, design, advertising, and immersive experiences.

Iloura, which has a 30-year production history in Australia, won a 2016 vfx Emmy for its work on Game of Thrones and has worked on two recent Oscar-nommed vfx films: Mad Max: Fury Road and Deepwater Horizon. The studio also worked on the recent Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle and Thor: Ragnarok. Notably, the studio has done a fair share of cartoon-oriented cg, including the Spongebob characters in The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water and the titular character in Seth MacFarlane’s Ted films.

They’ll join Method, founded in Los Angeles in 1998, whose recent vfx projcts include Thor: Ragnarok,Okja, and the vfx-Oscar-nominated Guardians of the Galaxy: Vol. 2. Its slate of upcoming projects includes Black Panther, Aquaman, A Wrinkle in Time, Ant Man and the Wasp, Avengers: Infinity War, Christopher Robin, The New Mutants, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindlewald, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, and The Untitled Deadpool Sequel.

The benefit of combining the companies, explained Method president and GM Ed Ulbrich, is “our ability to take on larger and more meaningful pieces of big features, to act as sole or co-lead vendor, choose our projects, and produce the stunning work these teams are creating doesn’t come from one studio or brand alone.”

Iloura’s Simon Rosenthal will now become Method head of vfx in Australia, and he will lead the newly combined teams. Method will also gain the talents of other key Iloura figures including vfx supervisor Glenn Melenhorst, vfx producer and executive producer Ineke Majoor in Melbourne, and general manager Jeanette Manifold in Sydney.